Like so many who are new to TSW4 you are faced with a huge array of DLC's to pick from, and really spoilt for choice. When I purchased TSW4 I created a list of what I thought I would like to get started with it came to over £325.00! So I paired things back a bit and settled on Flying Scotsman, ECML, Centro Regional and BR Class add on to get me started. I have found that I enjoy regional railways most as they offer more involvement and frequent stops. I also have got a great deal of pleasure from travelling on a route that I know well Centro Regional. Maybe the North Warwickshire Line Stratford upon Avon to Birmingham Snow Hill next time (Big DLC hint) My future wish list includes Fife Circle Line, and Blackpool Branches for a bit of nostalgia. I really am open to suggestion so shout out some of your favorites UK routes. I am sure I'll want them all but at £29.99 I going to have to wait.
Well you can’t go wrong with the classic diesel routes, Northern Trans Pennine and Tees Valley. Add the heavy freight pack for the Class 40 and the Class 20 and 31DLC’s. These will layer nicely into BPO. Peak Forest is very nice as a route even though steam physics are flawed and unlikely to get fixed. Spirit Of Steam, well it has good points but largely empty timetable and a crying shame it never got expanded either in terms of route or motive power/rolling stock.
If you're on Steam, do you know that you can have 14 DLCs for just 13,85€ at the Humble Bundle? If yes, I would be quick. The offer is running out in 2 days. Purchased mine a few minutes ago.
I don't think I've found the BR Class add-on. It sounds a bit dull, though. Since you seem to like British commuter passenger services with frequent stops, I think you might enjoy: London Commuter Southeastern Highspeed London Underground Bakerloo Line London Overground Suffragette Line
Until you've spent a bit of time with the included content, none, it's really easy to get caught up in the whole "must need more content" thing.
Everyone will give different recommendations. Just watch TSW Youtube videos to decide if you like what you see.
And while not totally kosher, if you are on Steam and buy a DLC and have played the core game less than two hours then you can apply for a refund. Just be aware if you do it too often or in quick succession Steam can get a bit snarky and issue a warning.
If you are going to buy old routes I recommend that you have some patience before hitting the buy button and wait for a good discount. Offers are very frequent and you can easily buy two or three routes for the price of one and save a lot of money, which you are sure to struggle to earn. Pay full price, only on the latest releases!
Thank you all for getting back to me. One thing that makes choosing a problem is when they string 4 or 6 optional extra titles to make it complete. Blackpool Branch is a good example. I have to say Preston Station is a work of art.
Looks like a good offer, I have looked at and are interested in 5 of the 15 featured titles. Can you select in Steam which titles Steam installs after purchase?
Yes, every DLC can be selected in the Steam application to being or not being downloaded. It's your choice what you got installed. One thing to say is that the Steam codes this time with the Humble Bundle do work tier-based. In the end, this doesn't change anything at what you get and how you install it. It just says that you don't get a unique serial for each DLC, which you could give to a friend once you already got a DLC for example. The only tier which works with that is the base tier with TSW4. So theoretically you should be able to give TSW4 to a friend if you already own it and just use the other tiers with the DLCs.
You don't link it with your Steam account. Humble gives you serial codes for the products. These serial codes you can activate on Steam and register with your account.
Just bear in mind that codes from Humble Bundle or similar reseller do not qualify for any refund (as explained earlier) should you happen to not like the item.
I'm very much enjoying Blackpool at the moment, bouncing along in the Pacer. If you're enjoying BCC's local passenger services and frequent stops, Glossop is very similar, with the same train. MML, Cathcart and London Overground offer broadly similar play too, each with its own quirks and features. I guess GWE too, but that's showing its age. WCL is flawed so probably the one to skip. SEHS, London Commuter and East Coastway feel busy and quite similar to each other, while Edinburgh-Glasgow is less interesting with fewer stops further apart. Blackpool, TVL and NTP have an older era feel but add variety and layers. We're finally getting to a point where the UK stuff is layering well, so trains turn up on other routes with pleasing frequency. Check what layers on any routes you buy so you can see if you're getting the fullest experience.
I have heard of layering, how does it work exactly? I am also checking with TSC forum for any mods that complement specific DLC's.
A "layer" means timetable services for a train that isn't included with the route, but which you might own as part of a different route (or loco DLC). German routes in particular benefit from layering, as all the modern-era DB trains run throughout Germany. Layering is often confused with substitution, which isn't quite the same thing. A "substitution" can happen when you own a similar loco to one in the route, and there is a % chance that the base loco will be replaced with the "import" (but is not an additional layer of services; it just replaces one with the other on an existing service) This for example is how Blackpool can get populated with Class 31s, 20s, 40s and so forth, imported from various BR-era routes.
I started back in November, have 13 routes now. If you like BCC, as I do, then here are recent purchases by me that I recommend. 1. Blackpool branches, just a perfect example of what a route should be. 2. London Commuter (most recent purchase). Considering its not a new route, the sheer number of services makes it a joy to run and the amount of trains near Victoria, makes other routes look empty. As above, it shows what BCC could be like if New Street station was real to life (come on DTG, fill it out). 3. Midland Main Line. I picked it up after the remaster, its a great route, which is still getting new DLC and has a lot of extention potential. Would be my top 3 UK routes and ones that are likely to be on sale in the next few months. I would certainly add TVL and NTP to the list, plus all the separate DLCs. They enhance the core routes plus layer in really nicely to BPO, but I do like the BR era diesels. As others have said, be careful in getting into a DLC frenzy when on offer. I did 4 on the last one and have not really utilised 2 of them. Most sales are 4 weeks to 6 weeks between them, so I would advise getting one or two at a time to fill the space between sales.
I think that considering Birmingham New Street Station is the second City and is huge. Whoever populated it with AI traffic and people must have had a day off. It is like the Mary Celeste. Whoever was responsible needs to take far more pride in their work.
Populate it with what? We have no Avanti West Coast, no LNWR, no Cross Country, nothing. Perhaps, if we get more WCML operators, layers could be added, but it seems unlikely DTG will go back to that route for now.
I think a lot of this depends on what you enjoy about TSW. If you are like me and enjoy service variety and the likelihood that your next run will be very different from your last one, I would highly recommend “layering up” on German and UK routes. I started out in TSW wanting to drive North American diesels. However, I have spent the vast majority of my time enjoying German safety systems and all the layers that come with German routes. For me the pinnacle of TSW is Dresden Riesa and Southeastern High Speed. Since you seem to enjoy British routes, I would highly recommend SEHS. SEHS has two different safety systems, two different types of power, and a loco that can change between the two on the fly. It also has what I consider the best service mode run of all time in TSW: 5F55 Faversham to St Pancras @ 17:35. There are some key service layers to get for Southeastern. I'm sure some people will correct me if I leave one out, but I would include the Rail Head Treatment train, the Rail Operations group, the 465, the 700, and the TGV - only a few services for the TGV, but they are excellent and it is fun to get it up to speed on the way to Ashford. For me the key thing to remember about TSW is that virtually every route has its flaws and, on this forum, we tend to dig deep and focus on the flaws. When I play, I try to look beyond the flaws and allow myself to enjoy a game that has made so much progress over the years. I have literally logged thousands of hours of stress relief and escape driving TSW locomotives and I look forward to many more!
SEHS and DRA are both really great with the different and the amount of layers and services to play. A shorter but also just as versatile route would be Bremen - Oldenburg. that one and RSN both have really good timetables in my opinion
Since getting TSW4 I have invested a fair amount in the sim, and I have a question, perhaps one I should have asked earlier! If and when a route gets updated, for example the upcoming changes to the Fife Circle line, is this update added automatically via Steam, and are updates to your existing portfolio of routes FOC.
yes. they will say if it is something like LIRR 2.0, but for free updates they are downloaded through Steam (although you may have to trigger that download yourself).
Hi! Most people would recommend that you should focus on a specific area as that's the best way to get the most mileage of your DLC's. That being said, nothing beats German content when it comes to loco variety, so if you want to optimize for getting the most out of your money, I would take a look at German content. It's definitely fun, but definitely not my cup of tea, as I mostly focus on UK and some US content. From your post I understand you're mostly interested in UK content. I will say this. There are a lot of UK DLC's but not all of them are created equal. I would mostly focus on the more recent ones and the ones that have been updated to ToD4. The UK route to get for variety is definitely SEHS. FCL with the mods is excellent now, Blackpool is beautiful and you get to drive some old school diesel traction. MML is a good option too, you get some HST action, 158, and 2 DLCs for freight on top of the base layer (Cargo Line vol 1 and 2). Don't get me wrong, there are great older UK DLC's but I wouldn't buy them now that ToD4 is a thing, eg. ECW is excellent, but looks kinda dated, same goes for TVL and NTP. An other excellent one is BML, it has the most insane timetable to date, but only if you like Electrostars. I would hold off on these for now until they get updated to ToD4, unless you can get your hands on them in a sale. The best way to get them all is to wait for a Steam sale and buy them in a bundle. They run these quarterly if I'm not mistaken, and the summer sale should be right around the corner.
I wouldn't say don't get them because they're old. I'd actually encourage purchasing the likes of TVL, NTP and BML purely because of what they offer.
Not to mention supporting routes like TVL and NTP sends the message that at least some of us would like to see more of these classic BR era routes in the game.
To be honest I just get almost all of DLC avaiable for TSW today. I just wait for some lower prices for only two routes I haven't got yet (Maintalbahn: Aschaffenburg - Miltenberg and Horseshoe Curve: Altoona - Johnstown & South Fork) and 5-6 locos/liveries (BR Class 52, Norfolk Southern Heritage Livery Collection, CSX C40-8W, Southern BR Class 313 EMU, DB BR 204, BR Class 31). Dispolok BR 182 and DB BR 101 is in my consideration, while when it was discounted I had got payment problems. Literally I had paid for it, but I never get it to my Steam account... But nevermind... DB BR 182, Rainbow livery for ICE3 I won't buy at all. I am exciting to the study version of ICE in the near future and obviously new routes. But getting into answering the question. For me every route has something to offer. I really like freight operations, but when I have possibilities to go with passanger trains it also gives me many joy. Maybe someone has a german or english trains as favourite, but for me those from america, Austria or Switzerland also brings a joy. Many depends of how do you like to play, while I like play the most realistic way possible. So disabled HUD when possible, HUD information limited only to distance, passanger loading, grade and sometimes speed restrictions. With GodMod movement speed reduced to be more realistic (movement speed set to 60, and "running" to 100), external checking train before leaving from yard or after emergency brake etc, sometimes I don't use external cameras at all... You can play it on different levels. It depends on you how do you will enjoy all of this stuff. With so many options you will find something for you. Newer DLC can have better graphics, but in TSW this shouldn't be the main reason to buy it or not. I have plenty of joy also with an older stuff, so give the older ones also a chance. Happy hunting and enjoy your rides!
Tons of old routes available for just a couple of pounds during the sales. Not all are good but some stand up very well and will give you critical layers to help you enjoy newer routes. I'm thinking Northern Transpennine, Tees Valley Line (mainly for the class 20 and 31 DLC), Ruhr Seig Nord (if you fancy a bit of German dlc), Great Western Express and East Coastway. There are others but these stand out for me as some of the highlights and are available for less than £5 in some sales.
